


Icy heart

by Gassu



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Elements, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner-centric, Bruce lives in a big castle, Cheating, Developing Relationship, Earth!Hulk, Established Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Fire!Tony, Heartache, Ice!Bruce, Ice!Steve, M/M, Mild Language, Relationship Problems, Sad Ending, Secret Relationship, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Hatred, Sex, Strong Language, Tony Stark Feels, Unbeta'ed, freaking element abilities, which is awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2409272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gassu/pseuds/Gassu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The more common elements were fire, water, earth and air.<br/>Bruce's element was ice, the Other Guy's was earth.</p><p>And when your big crush has fire element and also a boyfriend with ice element, what could you possible do? Oh, not to mention you actually never have met with your crush in person anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Icy heart

**Author's Note:**

> Story about elements. They wouldn't leave me alone and I wasn't 100% sure what should I write of them anyway. Until I wanted to write something about Bruce, while he has ice abilities.
> 
> And I wanted to write Bruce/Tony story, and make it more difficult so I throw Steve there as helping to make some tension around these boys.
> 
> Gosh, I'm horrible. Needing little angst and all that. I like to write these stories to myself a lot, but I'm happy if everyone else like them too.

_So cold. It was so cold. It was always so cold. He knew it. Has always known. He wasn’t sure where he was. Snow. There was snow and ice and snow everywhere. It was so white and pure. So pure. So familiar. Like he had always been there. Watching, listening… living. He looked around and tried to find something else. There wasn’t anything, nor anyone. He started walking through the snow and cold. Ice. There was definitely ice at the ground, beneath the snow._

_He suddenly noticed he didn’t have shoes on, but he was sure he had them moment ago. Huh? That was weird. Did he lose them? He doesn’t remember. He didn’t have socks either. So he lost them too, huh. He still had clothes on, he thought, but noticed he had only simple t-shirt and khakis on. The snow was so cold when he walked through it only with his bare foot and the air was chilly, but somehow besides everything, he didn’t feel like dying right there, curling in painful coldness that should have affected him. No. He felt like he was already part of the coldness, the snow, the cool air and ice. Like he was already dead, without worries to try and find his own warm place to try and stay alive. He was… this. Endless snow, ice, brightness and coldness._

_He stopped walking when he noticed forest far away from him. That was uncommon, there never was a forest with his endless snow field. The forest started to expand, taking the snow field part by part and it seemed like the forest and snow merged. It was so dark. His bright snow field was merged with dark forest and soon there was white and green. Green and white. He wanted to scream, his pure thoughts merged with rage and chaos._

_Who dares to interrupt his peaceful snow field? His mind. His familiar surroundings…_

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce woke up with a gasp. He felt his heart beating fast like it would explode anytime soon, but soon after he started to calm down little by little, taking deep breaths. He hated that dream. After his accident he had seen it too many times. His old familiar cold surroundings being taken by the Other Guy’s surroundings.

His element was ice. The Other Guy’s element was earth. The more common elements were fire, water, earth and air. Ice wasn’t common one, it was like ‘sub-element’ to water and air. Something that shouldn’t normally exist inside a person. Of course Bruce was thought to be born with water element, like his mother did, but the shock (especially) from his father who had earth element, was big when they noticed what element Bruce was born with. Freak, monster, was his father’s response when he noticed how air was always colder around young Bruce. He would beat his own son for being what he was. Quiet, cold. Eventually his mother started to notice his father’s aggressive behavior and protected Bruce from him.

Later there was several accidents where Bruce accidentally had almost killed his father and mother with cold ice when everyone were asleep at nights. He could have several nightmares, which leaded to him activating his cold icy powers and frosting everything around him and little bit more, which spread even outside his own room and to his parents bedroom. Over time his father went even more insane about Bruce’s freakiness and while his mother tried to get them out of the house to safety, his father grabbed his mother and throws her to the ground, banging her head to the ground where small river of blood started to emerge and turning his face full of rage towards Bruce, who instead remaining standing, started to run far away. Escaping in panic to the woods. He heard his father yelling at him, commanding him staying away from his house, from his life and gosh, he didn’t know was his mother alive anymore, but he couldn’t stop and turn and try to safe his mother even if he wanted to. His legs kept running. Running far away.

Some days later, he doesn’t remember much of his journey, but he found himself standing in front of an abandoned old castle in middle of nowhere. There was snow everywhere and it was cold, but for Bruce it was familiar. It was home. He decided to live his days here, in the castle. Even though he first had to clean and find some undamaged furniture (because it was clear that the castle had been abandoned for a long time and some furniture were definitely damaged over time in some way). And later he would find out that there was small village few miles away from his new home and that surely made him feel more confident living there, in the castle. He went to his new school, to continue his studying and then while growing older he found job from the Army, to replicate the super soldier serum and then the accident happened and the Army wanted to hunt him down, but he disappeared and then he was back living in his cold, lonely and big castle, trying to get rid of his big green problem, only noticing that the Other Guy had earth element, when he still was just icy freak. Well, the Other Guy was freak too, even though his element was common one.

 

* * *

 

 

Bringing himself back to the present, Bruce sighed and rubbed his face with his hand, still lying on his bed at the one of the castle’s towers. His bedroom was at top of the tower. He sat up in his bed and looked around his room, then stands up and walked to the window. The castle was standing in middle of big forest. There was snow everywhere and Bruce had noticed (and many other people from nearby village) that ever since Bruce had moved to the castle, the whole area has had endless winter. The thought made Bruce chuckle. It was good. No one was brave enough to come to the castle even to explore the place and some knew Bruce lived there, but there were also rumors about big green monster living there (yes, for several times Bruce couldn’t keep the Other Guy at bay, so he had come out and some unfortunate people were there to witness him near the castle, but were left unharmed when they did run away in panic). So he could live in peace there. His home, his rules, his life. He only hoped that no one was calling the Army to get rid of big green monsters anytime soon, but at least ‘big green monster’ was only a rumor, a fairytale, for now.

He still couldn’t get rid of the lonely feeling he always had when he continued living there alone. He once had a dog, when he was a lot younger. Before he even got the job from the Army. He hadn’t seen the dog for a long time. Someone did take the dog to live with them, when Bruce left to work with the Army. He hoped that the dog had good life.

Bruce got down from the tower, walking through the big cold stairs. Over time he had replaced old furniture with new ones and also had fixed some himself. He also had rebuild himself working bathroom and of course he kept the common living areas warm, like the bathroom, kitchen, living room, bedroom… Anyway, everything took its time to repair and rebuild, but at least he had everything working as they should and he wasn’t complaining. When he was working with Army, he got nice salary and it wasn’t hard to hire people building him things and he did some of the work too. He was genius and very good at learning something new. So the castle had some working electricity, heat system and running water. He couldn’t hope more.

Bruce walked to the big front gates of the castle grounds and opened them. He smiled when he found newspaper waiting in the snow for it to be picked up. There was this one old postman who was kind enough to leave everyday newspaper to the front of the gates for Bruce to pick it up. It was funny when he first time learned this and now it only made Bruce feel better about himself and about the people around him. There was kind ones and he was so glad of them. He picked the newspaper, closed the gates and went back inside through front door. He went straight to the kitchen and made an omelet, then went to the living room with his plate of omelet in one hand and the newspaper in other hand. In the living room there was one not-so-big television, lots of bookshelves with lots of old books and other little things and couch, several little chairs and coffee table. Of course he had a nice big carpet there on the floor too. It helped to keep the place and feet warm.

He sat on the couch, placing the plate on the coffee table and started to read the newspaper. There was some weird things going on around the world: politics going haywire, people suffering of some wars, some Avengers avenging and helping people to stop weird… monsters, as Bruce tried to think how to call those things he saw the picture of which seemed like it was taken during battle. The word ‘monster’ still didn’t feel good, because he wasn’t the right one to call the other weird things… well, weird monster things. After all, he was also one of them. Has always been quite weird, different and even now with the Other Guy lurking around, it made him ten times more different than ever.

He browsed through the newspaper, eating his omelet little by little. He was quite interested reading through what Stark Industries have been working on, because after they stopped working on the weapon business and turned to work with clean energy, he had sometimes even thought to get a job from them. Maybe someday. Maybe. And he would lie if he didn’t admit he had a crush on Tony Stark. The man was a genius too, like he was, and he had to admire the fight this man has been going through in his life to get where he was now. Everyone knew Iron Man, everyone knew what he has been through, but Bruce thought that not everyone still knew what happened ‘behind the scene’. Not even him and he was sure there was more to the story than what newspaper and other media were telling. There always was. Stark was also part of the Avengers, he knew.

Bruce sighed, turned a page and stopped to look at the picture of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers (aka Captain America). There was big bold text saying ‘ **STARK FOUND HIS LOVE AT LAST?** ’ and the small text telling how Stark and Rogers have been dating for a while and it seemed like they have been serious about it too. Something in Bruce’s chest felt tight and he found himself trying to take deep breaths. He knew Stark had fire element and he knew Rogers had ice, though before the serum he had air element, so he wasn’t born originally with ice element, like Bruce had and fire and ice usually were a big no-no in this world. After all, those two elements never were the best friends, but there were possibilities that sometimes opposite elements were able to be together. Even merge, but no one was sure what actually happened after that.

So, Rogers and Stark had found each other and they had opposite elements. How funny, Bruce thought and he still felt his chest heavy with jealousy, anger and sadness he didn’t know he had. Sure, he had a BIG fucking CRUSH on Stark, but he never had met him in person nor has he any rights to be. He was only one of the many other people around the world and that made him even more sad than he wanted to be. Gosh, was it too hard to just accept how things were? He was alone, has always been. Sometimes he could just watch when other people had their loved ones by their side and they talked and laughed and touched each other… and that only made Bruce really unhappy. To think he sometimes wished he could have a wife (or a husband) and maybe even kids. Dog, car, nice house even though he already lived in a big ass castle, but even most of the castle were still cold and dark places where Bruce would never step on. The areas he had reconstructed were enough to him. He was alone after all, but that already was clear.

The thing is that he couldn’t even find anyone. No, he shouldn’t find and he wouldn’t find anyone to accept his icy freakiness and his big and green ‘alter ego’. How could anyone ever love him who he was? And even with those freak-perks he had, he was also insanely smart, genius, and would anyone be able to love him for his brains too? He would work for hours in his lab and with equations no one other than other geniuses and maybe some smart people were able to talk about with him and gosh, he so would want to tell to his love how his days in work had gone, so there was too much turn off in him, he shouldn’t never ever put anyone to that kind of misery with him. And he should never forget that the Army still was interested at him and he would only put his beloved in danger if he was too selfish. Man, doesn’t this tell how depressive man he was and how sad his life was? Yes, yes it does tell.

Bruce sighed and put the newspaper to the coffee table and took the empty plate to the kitchen, washed the plate in sink and then put it to the cabinet. He then stretched his muscles. Now, what should he do next? Take a shower at least. Suddenly though he felt uneasiness and looked through the window to the road which was only divided from the castle grounds by big fence. There was big black limousine waiting and some people in black suits were standing there. He couldn’t see their faces very well, but he didn’t like it. When one of the men turned to look at the castle, Bruce’s heart jumped straight to his throat. Oh hell no, it was Tony Stark. Of fucking course it was. The fate never was nice to him. He cursed under his breath and for a second thought that he could just turn to the Other Guy and scare them away. That would teach them to never come back, but his more rational side told that it would be good to know what they wanted from him. Heck, what the fuck Tony Stark wanted from him. He had his boyfriend and he had his money and fame and… what the hell he could want from him? The castle was in middle of nowhere. Far away from civilization, except the nearby village where everyone knew Bruce and Bruce knew almost everyone and sometimes he went to grocery shopping there. So, what was this?

It was time for Bruce to ‘suit up’ and go outside. He wanted to just walk outside in his t-shirt, loose pajamas pants and without shoes or socks, but he had to hide his element from these people, just in case. Of course people wouldn’t first think that he had ice element, because that one was like one of the most rarest elements in world. And of course he didn’t want to feel awkward in front of ‘suit people’, so he went and found nice clothes and suit to wear. He then walked outside to the front gate and opened it. The men in black suits turned to look at him and Stark’s smile disappeared from his face for a second before he started to grin. That made Bruce even more nervous.

“How may I help you people?” was Bruce’s question to them. He tried to be rational human being and act like one too. He still felt like he was so damn angry about this all, but oh well, life is a bitch.

“Hi! I’m Tony Stark, but I think even you know who I am already.” said Stark with his shit eating grin which made Bruce just angry.

“Yes, but I still don’t know what do you want.”

“I’m interested in this castle.”

Bruce froze. His castle? Stark wanted his castle? Oh hell no! No one would never get his home from him. Bruce felt the Other Guy rumble in anger. Yeah, it was his home too. Fucking Stark.

“I don’t understand. This is my home, why would you be interested at my home? It clearly is winter all the time around here and it’s cold and lonely here. There isn’t civilization anywhere around these parts, except the small village few miles away, but that is all.”

Stark’s grin just grew wider. “Yeah, well I was just thinking my boyfriend. I think you know him, Rogers is his name, and he has ice element. This place has always winter so I thought ‘why the hell not’ and buy this place and rebuild it as one of my holiday places.” Bruce just listened, but he felt his anger rise when he heard the reason to take this place from him. Really fucking nice. Some part of his heart was also breaking into million pieces. After all, his crush had a boyfriend and his crush wanted to buy Bruce’s home to his boyfriend. Couldn’t fate be more cruel than this? “And anyway, this place could be rebuild to be even more in future, so why not? And you could get nice amount of cash and find somewhere else to live.” Stark continued his babbling. Bruce wasn’t interested to listen anymore, but he remembered suddenly what he heard about the ‘has always winter’-part from before and he chuckled. Stark stopped talking and looked at him in question.

“Sorry. But the thing you said before. The winter part. Sure this place has always snow, ice and all. It wasn’t that before though.” Bruce was telling. Heck, he probably was soon showing his abilities, but that didn’t matter anymore. He felt threatened and he wanted these people far away from his house as possible. Stark raised his eyebrow in question and Bruce continued “See, after I moved here, the place has always had winter season.” It took Stark for a moment to realize what he meant and his eyes went wide.

“You’re…?”

“Yeah. Now, I don’t want to sell my home to anyone. You can get it if I suddenly die a horrible death, but right now? No. I’m not selling and I want you people far away as possible from my home.” The men in black suits were getting jumpy for Bruce’s sudden change of voice, but Stark just looked at him in concern.

“Do you live alone here? In this big ass castle? All alone?”

That stopped Bruce for a moment. “Yeah, and if you think that changes my mind about selling this place, then no. This place is my home. The only place I feel like I’m safe from you people.” Okay, maybe he is saying too much, but whatever. It wasn’t like he wanted Stark to like him anyway. Well, not anymore when he had his love life and he was trying to get Bruce’s home. Damn this all made Bruce so angry. “And if you don’t now get the hell off my property, I sure as hell will make sure you get the hell out of here.”

The men in suits went inside the limousine, but Stark was staying and still was watching him. Bruce couldn’t say what he was thinking. Suddenly Stark was taking a step closer, _that fucking idiot_. “So, tell me.” Bruce heard him say and swallowed. “How you do this? How do you keep this place all the time in ice and snow?” Bruce turned his gaze from the snow to Stark’s face which somehow showed pure interest at him. Shit. “My boyfriend…” _Yeah, talk about him alright._ “…he can’t do anything like this and he is a fucking Captain America, the super soldier. Damn, man. Your powers has to be extraordinary!” Bruce swallowed again. “Who are you? I didn’t even ask your name. I’m sorry.” That somehow put Bruce off guard. Stark was suddenly trying to be friendly with him. Talk about change.

“…I was born this way. I always had extraordinary powers…” he couldn’t tell that he knew Rogers’ background and that his original element never was ice and maybe that was one reason why Bruce was more powerful on that field than the super soldier was. And he always had been freaky powerful and now that there was the Other Guy, well he was basically really dangerous. “And my name is Bruce Banner.” Stark’s eyes went wide when he heard his name.

“That Bruce Banner? You’re basically one of the top researchers in the whole world and then there is that gamma radiation… Wow.” Bruce could hear the awe in Stark’s voice. “Man, I have wanted to meet you, but you disappeared. That big green guy you turn into…” Wait what?

“Whoa whoa! How do you…?”

“Sorry. SHIELD knows who you are, I just happened to look at their little secrets and found about your file from their system.” Stark grins. Bruce was confused. SHIELD? “But really. You turn to big ass green monster! I’m big fan by the way. And to think you also had ice element and you are powerful even now. That’s just… wow.”

Bruce just looked at Stark. “And you didn’t recognize me, because…?”

“Ah, that. Sorry. Yeah, I didn’t, because I didn’t see any pictures of you in SHIELD’s files. I didn’t even find anything that said that you had ice abilities. And uh, they didn’t even have your current address, which made me question their abilities to fill information.” Stark was telling and Bruce was just wondering about this all. The sudden change in their discussion about buying his house to Stark being his fan… Bruce just shook his head. Damn, the fate was more confusing now than ever before. Suddenly he heard the limousine’s door open and the driver stands out of the car, looking at Stark.

“Mr. Stark, the other Gentlemen are asking if they could already leave. They are waiting for you, sir.”

Stark was quiet for a moment, just looked briefly at his driver then back to Bruce. He seemed to be thinking. “So I can’t buy your house, huh?”

Gulp. “Yes.”

“Okay. Well, no worries then. You can continue live your life like normally.”

He let go of the breath he had been holding. “Thanks.”

And then Stark had his face in full grin. “But I will be visiting you.”

Bruce looked at him like he had gone mad. “W-What?”

“C’mon! I just met you and I haven’t had the chance to properly talk with you. Just you wait, I will be back.”

And just like that, Stark turned around and walked to the limousine, jumped inside and the driver closed the door and then sat to the driver’s seat, closed his door and the limousine turned around and drove off, until Bruce couldn’t anymore see it.

The only thing he had in his mind was that he was wondering did Stark feel extremely cold outside here, while standing only in his expensive looking suit or would the fire element help him from freezing. He wasn’t sure.

 

* * *

 

He knew he should probably make some strong and big icicles around the fence, just to make this place look more threatening. And maybe, maybe Tony… no, Stark would leave him alone. It had been several days when he first met him and if he was coming to visit him… Geez, he was such an idiot. Bruce still wasn’t sure when he was coming to visit him, but whenever it was, he should be ready all the time. He would be lying if he said that he wasn’t little bit excited about this, but he was also anxious. Bruce just had to remember that the only thing he ever was going to be for anyone was a friend and even that should be enough when looking how he was always alone. Well, maybe this is something good after all?

Bruce walked outside to the front gate, opened it and walked to the other side. He raised his hands in fast movement and suddenly there was big icicles around his fence. They were very sharp and they pointed from the ground to sky, though they were a little askew. This should keep many other intruders away from his home. Actually, he should have done this long time ago, but oh well. Better late than never.

“Wow, that was cool!” there was a sudden mechanical voice above and Bruce looked up in a little panic, but then when he realized it was just Stark in his Iron Man suit, he relaxed a little.

“You shouldn’t surprise me like that…” muttered Bruce.

“Hah! Sorry. I thought you could have heard me, but I have to say that making those icicles wasn’t so quiet either.”

Bruce just looked at Iron Man with unimpressed face. “Yeah, playing with ice never really is quiet. Anyway, you should probably get down before I hurt my neck while looking up all the time and then the Other Guy would come out and I’m not even sure what he would like about guests.”

Stark started to descent and then when he was on ground, the suit started to unfold around him, he jumped out of it and then the suit started to fold back as suitcase. Bruce was impressed by the technology behind this, but it was Stark and he knew what kind of genius he was. Stark took his suitcase and smiled at Bruce. “Yeah, I know. I’m awesome.” Bruce just huffed a little laugh at that.

“Don’t think too much of yourself.” he said with a smile and then stretched out his hand for a handshake. “I remember we never did shake our hands.” Stark smiled at him.

“Well, I don’t usually shake hands, but in your case I’m little bit surprised we haven’t yet done that.” and then he took Banner’s hand and shook it. There was weird feeling when their hands touched and their elements reacted. It suddenly hurt and they both pulled their hands away from each other.

“Gosh, sorry! I-I didn’t know my element could react so aggressively to anyone.” Bruce said with a surprised, but sad tone. Damn, they never could even kiss each other if Stark would have been still single and Bruce could have made his move to him. Though would have they met if it wasn’t for Stark’s boyfriend in a first place? Bruce wasn’t sure.

“D-Don’t worry, Banner!” huffed Stark and he looked at his hand, muttering. “I never thought my element would react so aggressively either… It never does that to Steve.”

Bruce could say that his heart sank a little bit for that. Huh, he surely was a freak. He looked sadly at his hand and just wished he could disappear right now. His feelings were going haywire again. Damn it!

“Hey, Banner. It’s alright.” there was a voice and Bruce blinked, coming back to present and suddenly realizing how close Stark was. He flushed a little.

“U-Uh. Y-Yeah.” Cough. “So, inside?” He stretched out his hand towards the door. The gate was still open and Tony just nodded, then walked through the gate with his suitcase in one hand and the other hand in his jeans pocket. He waited at the front door, when Bruce closed the gate and went to open the door to Stark.

When they were inside, Stark was quite impressed by the look. He whistled. “Impressive. You have done nice work with the rebuild.”

“Thanks. It’s only this part of the castle which has been rebuild. There is living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Working electricity, running water and heat system.” Stark was grinning when he listened Bruce tell him what had been done to the castle.

“So, most of the castle still is dark and cold? Okay, that’s okay. It would be too big for you alone anyway.”

Bruce hummed his agreement and then leaded Stark to his living room. There he looked around and then back to Bruce. “It’s nice living room. You even got a TV here. Nice, very nice.” Then he looked at the bookshelves and was surprised. “Wow. You got really old books here, Banner. That’s so awesome.” he started to examine the bookshelves. Bruce smiled.

“Do you want to eat? I can wrap something up.” he asked. Tony turned his head towards Bruce and seemed like he was thinking about that.

“Well, sure. Why not. Anything is okay. Anything that isn’t gross.” and Bruce just chuckled at that. Tony grinned and turned his head back to examine the bookshelves. Bruce went to kitchen and took a look inside his fridge. There were some eggs, vegetables, sausage and other little things. He just shrugged and took the already boiled eggs, butter, cheese, tomatoes and cucumber. He then went to take some bread and made something with these ingredients. He put the delicious treat to plates and went back to the living room with the plates in his both hands. He found Stark sitting in his couch and reading some old book about this castle’s history. Bruce put the plates down to the coffee table and sat on the couch, besides Stark.

“Interesting, isn’t it?”

Stark looked at Bruce and smiled. “Yeah. This place has really interesting history. Hear this: _‘And the king said that his body should be buried with his castle…’_ , like that is so creepy. This place isn’t buried though, so I don’t know how true this is.”

“I think there may be another castle underneath this castle.”

“Whoa, really? Is there some kind of secret passageway here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. This castle is big.”

“Awesome! Let’s go to explore some more!”

Bruce wasn’t sure should he agree with that, but Stark just wrapped his fingers around his wrist (damn, it burns, but he seemed not to care) and then they started their little adventure throughout the castle. They found the throne room, some old living areas and old kitchen area. Then later they got back to the living room and Stark was laughing.

“Man, there literally are skeletons in the closets!”

Bruce just chuckled. “Yeah well, you were the one who wanted to open that closet and got a hug from that skeleton.”

“Yes, but you didn’t want to touch it.”

“I didn’t either scream like a little girl.”

“Hey!” was Tony’s protest, but it died down when he started laughing again. “Oh god, I haven’t laughed like this in for a long time. This was fun. We really should continue our exploring some other day.”

Bruce was smiling. “Yeah. I have never gone to those places before either, so it was nice to explore this castle some more. It was fun.” They looked at each other. Stark was smiling. Bruce was blushing little bit. He never thought that he could actually have fun with Stark, even though he may have dreamed about him sometimes.

“So, let’s talk about science.” suddenly Tony said and for a second Bruce was little bit confused, but then smiled. Yeah, awesome. His favorite subject to talk about. He just nodded to Stark and they started to talk about chemicals, radiation, engineering and so on. In somewhere around the time, Bruce had thrown away the breads he had made earlier and they hadn’t eaten them. The conversation continued late into the night and then Bruce noticed how much the time was.

“It would be good to go to sleep now.”

Tony looked at the clock too. “Hm. Yeah. Maybe so. Where do I sleep?”

Bruce thought about that. “Uh, you can sleep on my bed in the tower. I can stay here on the couch.”

Tony chuckled. “Yeah, well. I have been sleeping in the tower before, though I may like your tower more.” Bruce blushed, but then leaded Stark to his bedroom. They climbed some stairs and Tony complained why there wasn’t elevator anywhere and Bruce just rolled his eyes. When they got to Bruce’s bedroom, Tony collapsed to his bed. “I will never leave this bed again.” he said. Bruce just shook his head, but smiled.

“Well, you will leave tomorrow again, so I think you will have to leave the bed too. And I still need it.”

Tony turned his head to look at Bruce and then thought about it. “You could sleep with me, you know? That couch may be okay, but bed is the place where you sleep really.” Bruce blushed a little to that.

“I don’t mind sleeping on the couch..”

“Yeah, whatever. Just know that your bed here is quite big for two grown up’s to sleep together. And to tell you the truth, I would be feeling much safer, because now I’m in different environment.” and Stark tapped his chest, where Bruce finally seemed to notice the device Stark had had for a long time now.

“Is that…?”

“Arc reactor? Yeah. It keeps me alive.” and Bruce just looked at Stark in awe.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“We can sleep together in same bed if it makes you feel better.”

Stark grinned and then took his clothes off, leaving only boxers on and his tank top on. Bruce was blushing for a moment, but did the same and left his t-shirt and boxers on. They slipped under the blanket and kept their distance from each other. Soon they both fell asleep.

And when the morning came, they found their arms and legs wrapped around each other and then suddenly took their limbs back to their own side. Stark yawned and Bruce was blushing, but he got off the bed before Stark did and then took his clothes and dressed up. Stark did the same soon after.

Later Stark left with his Iron Man suit, but promised to visit soon again and Bruce found out that he couldn’t wait.

 

* * *

 

 

So, it took only around a month for Bruce to call him Tony and three months when Tony kissed Bruce suddenly. First it was only by accident, but Bruce didn’t stop there and he kissed back. That was a mistake, he knew it, but he still did it. After that, they usually gave little kisses to each other and cuddled a lot. Then there was days when they kissed even with more passion, but they didn’t have sex. They couldn’t.

Then came a day, when Tony came to visit Bruce again and Bruce was so happy that he just opened his door without looking outside of his window and suddenly stopped. He started to frown when instead of Tony, there was standing Steve Rogers at his doorstep. Tony’s voice came from behind. “Sorry Bruce! Steve wanted to meet my BFF. I should have called you, but then I remembered that you don’t still have a cellphone, like really. What’s with that?”

“It’s nice to meet you Dr. Banner.” Rogers stretched out his hand so they could shake hands. Bruce hesitated for a moment, but then shook it. There was weird feeling when they both touched. After all they both had ice element and somehow it didn’t please Bruce at all. He took his hand by his side after the hand shake and tried to smile like nothing was wrong.

“Nice to meet you too, Mr. Rogers.”

“Hey, let us in, Brucie! It’s so cold~” Tony whined and jumped past Steve inside to the castle. He slapped his hand to Bruce’s shoulder when he also went past him and walked to the living room area. Bruce just smiled fondly and watched Tony’s going.

“Sorry about that. When he feels like he owns the place, he can get quite… Well, I’m sure you know.” Rogers apologized. Bruce nodded.

“Yeah. I know.” he answered. “Um, if you don’t mind… You can come inside too.”

“Thanks.”

When Bruce leaded Steve to the living room area, where Tony was sitting at the couch and reading again one of the old books Bruce had had around, he then offered to bring some coffee to them. Steve accepted, Tony wasn’t in the mood and when Bruce came back from the kitchen with a coffee and a tea, Tony was gone and Steve was sitting at the couch, reading the same book Tony had read earlier. Bruce gave Steve his coffee and Steve put the book on the coffee table and took the coffee, telling his thanks to him. Bruce then sat on to armchair, which was next to the couch. He then took a little sip from his tea.

“Tony went to bathroom. Maybe to take a shower or something. I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, because he just uses everything around here like he pleases.” told Steve. That explained Tony’s absence.

“Don’t worry. He has been here so many times already that this is like his second home. He is my best friend, after all.” Bruce said, while trying to keep their more deeper relationship hidden.

“Yeah, I have noticed. I’m really glad he found someone else to talk about science with. I really don’t understand half of what he tries to say sometimes, but I have learned nice deal about the modern days technology anyway.”

Bruce smiled. “That’s good.” He just watched the wall and didn’t want to meet Rogers’ eyes.

“Uh, by the way…” Rogers said suddenly and Bruce turned his gaze to him.

“Hm?”

“Because you’re so close to Tony, I would like to know what he would like about this.” and then Rogers took a small black box from his jacket’s pocket and opened it. It was a ring. More likely an engagement ring. Bruce felt his heart beat faster. Damn.

“I was thinking to propose to him. What do you think?” Steve asked, while showing the ring to him.

Shit. “Um, I think he will love it. I’m sure he will say yes. He seems to love you very much.” He kept fighting the urge to chew his lower lip.

“You think he will like it? I wasn’t sure when I tried to find the right one, but this probably will do it then. And hey, thanks. Glad to hear he shows his love for me even to you.” smiled Steve and closed the small black box and stuffed it back to his pocket. Bruce resisted the urge to chuckle. It wouldn’t be nice. Nothing he and Tony had wasn’t right, when there was someone like Rogers who loved Tony and wanted to marry him.

They talked about some other things and even Tony got finally back from the bathroom. Bruce gave them his bed from the tower for the night and then when Rogers and Tony went to his bedroom, he collapsed to the couch in living room. He had to remember to change the bedclothes tomorrow. He really didn’t want Rogers’ scent on them and maybe something more if they decided to use his bed for… Yeah, maybe not thinking about it is good idea. Damn, he suddenly felt lonely. It took some time before Bruce fell asleep on the couch.

The next day Bruce was startled awake by a hand brushing through his hair.

“Good morning, beautiful.” It was Tony’s voice.

“Where is your fi-” no, they weren’t engaged yet. “-boyfriend?”

“Oh, he is in the shower now. We will be leaving soon.”

Swallow. “…Okay.”

“Bruce…”

“…Tony.”

They looked at each other and Tony still had his hand in his hair, but before anything could happen, they heard Rogers coming and Tony took his hand from Bruce’s hair and turned to smile at his boyfriend. Bruce closed his eyes and swallowed. Damn.

They left an hour later and Bruce didn’t get the chance to even kiss Tony. The lonely feeling swallowed him again. What the hell he was even doing? Tony had his love and soon-to-be-husband. What Bruce had? Tony, but really he didn’t have him. He never had him. He gasped a sob and for the first time in so long he felt so weak.

 

* * *

 

The next time only Tony came to his doorstep and looked at him with big eyes. He wasn’t happy nor sad, but more like confused. “Is everything alright, Tony?” Bruce asked, a little worry in his voice.

“Steve proposed to me.”

Bruce’s heart stopped for a second. Shit. He knew this was coming. That was… “That’s… That’s nice. What was your answer?”

Tony took a deep breath. “I… I said yes.” Bruce’s eyes closed and he felt his heart ache to that. But Steve did ask his opinion about this and this is the right thing to happen. Tony took his face to his hands and kissed him. “Bruce… I…” Bruce silenced him with another deeper and burning kiss.

 

* * *

 

 

Fucking Stark in his bed was something he thought to be never doing. It hurt when their elements reacted, but at the same time in some sick erotic way they wanted more. Stark was mumbling some nonsense and his fingers were pressing hard to Bruce’s shoulders, nails leaving marks. They were sweating. Literally, a lot. But it shouldn’t be surprising. Ice fucking fire. Their skin burned, inside and outside and Bruce wanted more. He wanted Tony, but knew he could never get him. He kissed him with passion, when he fucked him harder, just to show how much he wanted him. Stark couldn’t do anything else than wrap his hands around Bruce’s neck and kiss him back deeply, moaning his name to his lips.

Bruce wasn’t sure how this happened, but he sure as hell will miss this. They knew this was wrong in many ways and if Stark was going to be married to his fiancé. Man, what are they even doing here? This is literally betraying your own fiancé, but in the other hand, this was also their first and last time like this. He knew it. He also knew he was hopelessly in love with Tony and that made his heart ache even more. So he fucked him. Fucked so hard he could never forget this feeling until his last breath. He moaned Tony’s name and came inside him. Marking him. Or so he liked to think. Tony came also very fast after that and they were panting, while Bruce pulled out and collapsed beside Tony.

“I love you.” said Tony’s panting voice and Bruce froze. He turned his head to look at Tony and saw how his eyes were bright and full of emotions. Bruce couldn’t say it back, because Tony was meant to be with someone else, but he answered with deep burning kiss.

Later that day, after they cleaned up, and continued kissing with passion, Tony had his hands wrapped around Bruce’s neck and they were standing in the living room, with their clothes on. “I love you.” he said it again and Bruce wanted to answer him with same words, but he couldn’t. He kissed him again and Tony kissed him back harder.

“We can’t see each other anymore.” told Bruce to him and yes, Tony knew it. They had their foreheads pressed against each other.

“I can leave him.” was sudden answer from Tony. Bruce’s eyes shot open.

“No, Tony. That’s… no! Don’t do that. You could be happy with him. We hurt each other. Our elements are reacting aggressively. I don’t even want to know what else would happen and believe me that I’m really dangerous-”

Tony just kissed him so he would shut up. Each kiss was like burning their lips and every touch burned their skin. “I know, but the sex... it was awesome. The pain was worth it.” And Bruce couldn’t think anything else than agree. Of course it was worth it. They loved each other and wanted each other, but this relationship would be always painful and if something else happened while they continued like this… he couldn’t live with the thought of hurting Tony. So this didn’t work. It will never work.

So Bruce didn’t say he agreed with the thought and instead ushered him to leave. “I believe your fiancé is waiting for you.”

Tony looked him straight into the eyes. His brown eyes full of sadness. “Can I really be happy with him? You know, we could still see each other. I want to… I…”

“You know we can’t. You can’t be happy with him if you can’t let me go.”

“Bruce…”

“You said yes to his proposal and he is more healthier to you than I am. He will make you happy, believe me, but first you just have to let me go.” Every word he said hurt him so much that he was sure that the Other Guy would want to come out anytime soon and try to stop the pain. He could see the pain in Tony’s eyes too. Shit. This was never meant to happen. They should have never met.

Life is a bitch.

For a moment they were standing in silence and looking at each other’s eyes, but then Tony nodded. “Yeah, yeah. You’re right.” Bruce could see how wet Tony’s eyes were becoming and he hated himself for that. “Sorry. You’re right.” Then Tony was looking for his shoes and jacket and when he found them, he put them on and then took his suitcase, which was really one of his Iron Man suits. He went to the castle’s front door and looked back at Bruce. “Thanks.” he said and opened the door and when he was outside, he closed the door behind him, leaving Bruce alone inside.

And when he heard the Iron Man suit took off, he collapsed to the floor to his knees and started crying. _“Fuuuck.”_ he sobbed and tried to wipe the tears away. He was like that for an hour or two and after that just stood up and climbed the stairs to the top of his tower, to his bedroom. He collapsed to the bed where he and Tony had just sex a few hours ago and he could still smell Tony there. His tears started to run again and he sobbed for a moment there. Another hour and he had been calmed down. He could feel the Other Guy rumble inside him. How Banner was stupid to let him go and Bruce knew he was total idiot.

He turned around to lay on his back and looked straight to the ceiling. For a moment he didn’t feel anymore anything and he was just quiet. He lived in ‘big ass castle, all alone’, like Tony said long time ago. Like monster prince with IQ so high, not just anyone could compete with him. Except his story wouldn’t have happy ending. Then he made some strange decision.

“I love you too, Tony.” he said to the air and closed his eyes.

And with simple agreement with him and the Other Guy, they put themselves to eternal sleep, while the ice swallowed the whole castle piece by piece and turned it to one big iceberg, while the forest around them expanded and wrapped itself around the iceberg.

Maybe he will never wake up or maybe he will survive another decade and wake up someday, like Captain America did, but he hoped he just could sleep for eternity and wish for his loved one good luck.

 

* * *

 

 

_He was standing on the snow field again. He hadn’t seen this dream for a long time. This time though, he saw the forest far away, but it didn’t expand suddenly like it always did. He just looked at it with confused look and then turned his head to the other way, seeing a field of fire far away. He started to walk and then run towards it. He has a feeling he is missing someone, like the fire would tell him who it was, but it seemed like he never got any closer to it. He still continued running towards it. He will get there, someday. Maybe._

**-THE END-**

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.  
> *cries*


End file.
